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Mamma Mia! Here I go again! Okay it’s still running through my head and I have the urge to dance and twirl and sing through the house! haha!

Last night my daughter19 and I went to the movies to see Mamma Mia! It was so fun! Originally a broadway stage show based on songs by ABBA and now made into a movie starring Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnon. Also starring were Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgård, Julie Walters, Christine Baranski, Amanda Seyfried. Amanda just glowed as Sophie through the movie, beautiful girl!

We got to the theater 5 minutes before the movie started expecting no problem getting in, figuring people were mainly there to see Batman. Parking was horrible, and as expected, we saw lines of people waiting for Batman as we entered. We bought our ticket, walked down to our theater and as we walked in were surprised to see almost every seat was taken. We had to end up sitting in the second row from the screen! Who knew Mamma Mia! would be as popular as Batman?!? Go musicals! woo!

I found the movie delightful! There is a wonderful mother/daughter theme to the movie and I’m really glad I got to see it with my daughter. It was so nice to see mature women being portrayed who aren’t model thin.

Yes, true. Don’t expect a deeply seriously movie, it’s very lighthearted, though I did truly get misty a couple of times and totally cried during the pre-wedding scene (yes, I’m one of those). No sex scenes, but some sex talk. And wonderful, in my book, to see mature women, who aren’t model thin or perfect, having fun with their girlfriends and men! It was hilarious to watch the actors making music videos to the ABBA songs at the end! Um, Pierce’s voice made me cringe, just a little – in spots, but I still loved it because it was real. Meryl actually did a credible job singing through it all, who knew?

This is a movie to see with your mom, or your older daughter. If you’re in the mood for singing, dancing and fun, go see Mamma Mia! You won’t be sorry, and you’ll be singing the songs for days! Mamma Mia! Here I go again!

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1. Link to the person who tagged you.
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Six Random Things About Me (aka @lauralovesart):

1. I was adopted, it was pre-arranged before I was born.

2. The boy I was in love with in high school was killed in a car crash when I was in 11th grade. He looked a LOT like Brad Pitt.

3. I dance and teach Polynesian dance, well I used to.

4. My favorite type of art is Pre-Raphaelite. My favorite artist is John William Waterhouse.

5. Pink is my favorite color and I collect unusual things in pink, I also collect cookbooks.

6. I own a lot of antiques because my mom used to own an antique store.

When I was four or five years old I went to the California State Fair in Sacramento, the state capital(I say this because people who should know that Sacramento is California’s state capital don’t seem to know this. I have had people argue with me, people I thought were intelligent even!) with my parents. I was going to go with my Mom, then decided to go with my Dad, I let go of my Mom’s hand, turned around to go with my Dad, and he was swallowed by the crowd! I turned around to go back with my Mom, and she had disappeared as well! Somehow I found the police or they found me, I can’t remember that part. The police were trying to take me to the police department and I said, “No! No! My parents will find me! We can’t leave!”. And they did. My parents had bought me this huge balloon that was one-of-a-kind. I can vaguely remember it, it was a really big white balloon with red and blue stars on it. Luckily, my parents spotted the balloon and found me with the policemen!

The moral of this story is: buy your kids balloons! Oh, and hold on to their hand tightly in crowds, that too.

1. I can dance.
2. I can dance and teach Polynesian dancing. Yes, that means Hawaiian hula, modern and ancient (kahiko), Maori, Tahitian, and a bit of Samoan.
3. I was president of a non-profit organization for 5 years. Ka Ohana O Na Huapala(the family of friends with much love), a non-profit Polynesian cultural group.
4. I love cats, and other animals too, but cats the most.
5. I used to manage a store called Nautilus Tropical Fish and Gifts.
6. I know a lot about taking care of aquariums and the names of most fish.
7. I was beaten up and robbed while working there.
8. I owned my own business for 20 years. I was a Mary Kay Cosmetics Consultant and I had up to seven consultants on my team.
9. I went to Dallas, Texas and Annaheim, California on Mary Kay business trips.
10. I’ve used Mary Kay Cosmetics religiously since I was 19 years old. (Thank you Trudy Ball, now my consultant!)
11. Pink is my favorite color.
12. I collect odd things in pink. I have a pink tool kit and extension cord. I have a large collection of pink depression glass.
13. I know the names of most flowers. I used to be really interested in gardening and read a lot of books. I like planting flowers, gardening.
14. I like to cook and bake.
15. I have over 50 cookbooks. I used to collect them.
16. I used to bake bread from scratch regularly when I was a teenager.
17. When other people wanted to grow up and be doctors and lawyers, I wanted to grow up to be a mom.
18. I took ECE (Early Childhood Education) classes at Fairfield High School to prepare myself to be a mom.
19. I LOVE being a Mom. I believe that I’m not going to be president of the United States, but that the most important thing I’m going to do is be a good parent.
20. I took square dancing lessons as a child.
21. I took bowling lessons as a child.
22. I took swimming lessons as a child.
23. I took ice skating lessons as a child.
24. I took piano lessons as a child.
25. I’m not really good at any of the things I took lessons in as a child.
26. I had a secret code way of writing messages with one of my best friends, Kathy White, in high school. I still remember most of it.
27. I was facinated with witchcraft in junior high school/freshman year of high school.
28. I used to have a palomino pony named Comanche when I was a child and lived up in Issaquah, Washington.
29. We had a creek, May Creek, that ran through our property and I saw salmon spawn.
30. I lived on the side of Tiger Mountain and used to play in the woods.
31. I know how to fish, but I don’t like to eat fish with fins. Yuk!
32. I do like shellfish! Crab, clams, lobster, shrimp, I’m not sure about oysters…I’ve had them smoked and they were good. I’m scared to try them raw.
33. I like to sing. I was in choir through most of grade school and in Acapella in High School. I know the words to a lot of songs.
34. I took knitting lessons at Michael’s Craft Store in Santa Rosa, but I really haven’t practiced. I can crochet a great baby blanket though!
35. I love time travel romance novels. My favorite is Outlander by Diana Gabaldon.
36. I love to read. As a teenager I would read romance novels all night until the sun came up and I had to get ready for school.
37. The guy I was in love with during high school, and sometimes dated, was killed in a car crash during my junior year.
38. I like to take pictures. I’m starting to enjoy photography more and more.
39. I love flowers, I love the colors and the smell.
40. I work for the school district with special ed children, mainly autistic children.
41. A few nights a week I work at a fine dining restaurant, thought right now I’m between jobs.
42. I have two intelligent amazing children, girl -19, and boy – 22, they both still live with me.
43. I had a huge wedding, 500 people, a band, my polynesian group performed, I was married to their father for 13 years, actually maybe it was 15 by the time the divorce was final, but those don’t really count.
44. I am a serial entrepreneur. I have 4 websites planned!
45. My first website is thesmartmomsnetwork.com. I’m on my third developer…
46. In Feb. 2007 I founded and am Senior Partner of RW Investments. I run it non-profit. It is an investment club for women.
47. I’m 4 classes away from getting my AA in Liberal Studies.
48. I graduated from the Sacramento Entrepreneurship Academy (SEA) in 2005.
49. I used to work at Chevy’s Fresh Mex in Fairfield, Villa Romano in Napa, and Julia’s Kitchen in Copia in Napa.
50. My parents live two blocks from me and don’t drive anymore, so I am their chauffeur, and I don’t mind at all! They did it for me, now it’s my turn.
51. I write poetry.
52. I have family on my dad’s side in Washington State, and family on my mom’s side in Tennessee. No other family besides my parents and kids and I here in California.
53. My Dad was in communications with the Air Force for 22 years, he retired when I was five. Then he worked for Boeing making airplanes in Washington, then ended up retiring from the Fairfield Post Office as a mail carrier. My Mom taught kindergarten, worked as a cashier in restaurants, worked in a post office in Alaska, had a business called The Happy Hangers with her friend Cathy Miller where they did wallpapering, then had Mary and Gerry’s Yesteryear Antiques with her friend Mary Miller(not related to Cathy). She retired after working in the office at the mobile home park we live in.
54. When I was married we had two houses, the second one was huge, two story, four bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a huge backyard that we put a barked in play area for the kids with a swingset and fort and playhouse, and a huge fenced in oval doughboy pool. We lost that back to the bank, my ex talked me into declaring bankrupcy right before he asked for a divorce. Now I live in a 3 bedroom, 2 bath mobile home. Just for now. I’ll have a nice cozy house with a fireplace again soon, just wait and see! When all my sites are done on the internet…I’ll be the next big thing!
55. My son started taking college classes in eighth grade. He took Intro to Programming, CIS 1, and Into to Networking. I took all of these classes with him. He also took Fencing, which I didn’t take with him. He was in Acadeca, Academic Decathalon his senior year at Fairfield High School. He went to Europe for three weeks and visited Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and the Czech Republic. He attended the San Francisco Academy of Arts University for one year, and was going to major in Computers, New Media. He wasn’t sure if this was really his life’s passion, so he dropped out to re-evaluate. He’s worked at Hot Topic, H & M, and currently at Barnes and Nobles. He loves to read.
56. My daughter was in Honors and AP classes. She was on the Yearbook Staff as Asst. Editor and formed a Knitting Club. She is attending the local community college completing her general ed. She graduated from the Hex Makeup School with her certificate in Makeup Artistry. She has worked for her father re-stocking at the commisary and currently is working at PVE (Paradise Valley Estates) in food service and freelancing as a makeup artist.
57. I took 3 semesters of Ballroom Dancing.
58. I have no fear of public speaking. None. A stage? A mic? A camera? I’m READY!
59. I’ve never colored my hair.
60. I pull out the gray hairs that show! I may have to start coloring it soon.
61. I have very long natural fingernails, but rarely paint them.
62. For some reason I have scissors in almost every room of my house. I just recently realized I do this!
63. When I was four or five I got lost at the California State Fair.
64. I started talking very early as a child, at 9 months old. Even before I could walk. By the time I was 12 months old I was talking in complete sentences and singing songs.
65. I did some modeling. I modeled shoes for Darlington’s. I modeled for a couple of friends who were photographers. One had an old fashioned photo booth and he used my pics for his display.
66. When I was in high school I volunteered at the S.P.C.A. Sometimes I was there by myself. Sometimes I had to supervise the bad kids who were sent there to do community service. That was a little scary. That’s why I quit.
67. I was in a pageant. I didn’t win but I was a fair hostess for the Solano County Fair.
68. While I was a fair hostess I got to ride in a helicopter!
69. I’ve been on TV! It was a local channel that filmed the school board meeting. The principal at my children’s school asked me to teach some children a Hawaiian song for multicultural week. I had to get up in front of the school board and introduce the children and explain what the song/dance was about. It was fun!
70. Chocolate is my favorite food, especially dark chocolate. Next favorite is Chicken Kiev.
71. I love to exfoliate! Buff, scrub, pumice, loofah…i adore it all!
72. I had viral menengitis when I was three and lived in Goose Bay Labrador. I almost died.
73. I was adopted. (see other post)

So my family has been going through a lot of changes. Changes like me being laid-off and home all the time, changes in the eating habits of the kids, and changes like me starting to go to the gym.

It’s been interesting being home. I thought I wanted it. I thought it would be the most wonderful thing in the world and I would get SO much done. The truth is that I’m bored sometimes and lonely too because I have all this free time and the kids work and have their own friends and so I’m home alone at loose ends. I’ve finally started to work on the house, and boy does it need it! I’ve given a bunch of stuff away to freecycle.org in the last two days, cleaned my porch mostly, I still need to vacuum it though. It’s really hard for me to get rid of stuff. I’m not sure why, but I’ve always been a packrat. Part of it may be having gone through a divorce you feel like you lose so much that you don’t want to let anything you do have go. But I’ve always been like this to some degree. I read a book recently, “Clear Your Clutter with FENG SHUI” by Karen Kingston, and I get it, I get why it is important to clear your clutter and how it could improve your life. It’s just really hard to let go of stuff still. Some things are harder than others of course. I can let go of the dress that I paid 99 cents for at the thrift store and really didn’t end up fitting me that well anyways, but the really cute dress that I bought at Macy’s for a wedding that is too small for me right now but might fit me after I work out for a couple of months, that I don’t know if I can get rid of. I guess I’ll start with the easy things. I thought I would get more done, but I’ve found myself spending hours upon hours on sitting in front of my computer screen. I’ve learned a lot, I’ve made some new friends, but I need to rebalance my time management! That’s my goal right now.

Our eating habits have gone through some changes since I’ve been home. To start off with when the kids were little and I was a stay-at-home mom or SAHM I used to cook 6 nights a week, and one night a week we would go out or get fast food. Since I have been working two jobs, I am lucky to cook one night a week, I’m usually too tired and I usually had the money to just go out or pick something up. Now that I’m home, I’ve started cooking again every night. I’ve had some hits and misses in the cooking department, but I’m rediscovering how much I love to cook! The thing is, now that I’m getting the hang of cooking every night again, my kids have decided to change their eating habits. My 22 year old son has now become a vegan, and my 19 year old daughter is currently on a juice fast. The outcome of this has been that the lovely meatloaf cooked in a bag with veges that I made two nights ago, I have had to eat by myself for two nights, and now I’m tired of it and throwing the rest out. Apparently, I’m going to need to learn to cook vegan or be eating alone. This should be interesting.

Lastly, the gym. I used to go to the gym faithfully. I used to read workout books and Self Magazine (or is it Shape) and be hardcore about going to the gym 5 days a week. I worked out with free weights and machines 2 days a week curcuit training and then did aerobics classes the other three days. I was in fantastic shape! And then I stopped. And then the last 15 years I guess I have been working two jobs and sometimes going to college and there just didn’t seem to be any way to fit in a work out regularly, so I didn’t do it at all. Last year I joined 24 Hour Fitness and planned to go work-out with my daughter. I’ve gone three times, and two of those three times were in the last week. I’ve been diagnosed with pre-diabetes and they told me I should lose some weight and exercise (I always have to check how to spell the word exercise, I want to make it excersize or something else), anyway, I need to be exercising. So, now I’ve started. I went twice with my daughter in the last week. One day we just did the stairmaster, the next day we worked out on the weight machines and also the stairmaster. It’s all starting to come back to me. The things I used to know, the techniques, the enjoyment of working out and being fit! The thing is, I don’t know if I can keep this all up or not once I start back to work. I guess I’ll cross that hurdle when I come to it. How do you balance work, fitness, and all the other stuff you have to do?

Now the 22 year old son brought home 3 yoga/meditation DVD’s. Who knows what my house will be like next week?

I was adopted. No, no I wasn’t in an orphanage or anything. It wasn’t like Shirley Temple. It was pre-arranged before I was born by a mutual friend of my moms, Judy Donohoe. My Mom, Gerry Brewer, had several miscarriages and it was determined that she couldn’t have children. My birth mom, Grace Gordon, got pregnant by someone who wasn’t her husband while her husband, Jim Gordon, was away in the Air Force. Jim said, “It’s the baby or me!” Back in 1960 not many women worked or had careers. Abortion was illegal until 1973 when the U.S.Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that during the first trimester, a woman has the right to decide what happens to her body. It would have been a hard life for Grace and her children if she had gotten divorced. So, being 1960, and Grace having other children, she gave me up for adoption.

I was born on April 26, 1960 at Intercommunity Hospital in Fairfield, California. At nine days old I went home from the hospital with my new family and Laura Jane Brewer became a spoiled but sweet only child who had a pony. Apparently, my birth mom, Grace, would call and check on me until my parents asked her not to. It scared them too much because the birth mom can ask for the baby back up until it’s six months old. Also there was an incident when my parents were out at a pizza restaurant. Their name was called out, “Brewer!”, to come pick up their pizza, a woman with long reddish hair came up and asked them their name then hurried away. They think it must have been my mom. They all lived on Travis AFB, CA at the time.

I’ve never met my birth mom, but I’d like to meet her. I tried to search for her on the internet, but it’s a common name, and who knows if she stayed with her husband? She could have remarried and have a totally different name. Somewhere out there I have two or three or more half brothers and sisters. I’d love to meet them, to know them, to see if they look like me. Then there is my fathers side of the family, that’s another total mystery.

Being adopted is sometimes difficult. I don’t know my heritage. I don’t know my nationality. When the doctor asks I don’t know if I have a family history of any diseases, like heart disease or breast cancer. Maybe my family is rich!? Maybe I am decended from royalty!? Maybe they are poor and I could help them. I just don’t know?

But on the flip side, I have wonderful parents. I could not have been more loved. Although I think Grace loved me and was really torn up by the decision she had to make, I think she made the right one. She gave two people who desperately wanted a baby to love her child and made them a family. Thank you Grace.

No, no, no, not to me, but it happened! I think it’s a first too! Not the most traditional romantic way to propose. But definitely a geeky romantic way to propose! This put a smile on my face from ear to ear and I had to share it with everyone. Spread the good news!

For those of you not members of the Twitter.com community, DM stands for Direct Message. So we weren’t privy to her response, but it looks like it was a yes from the following twitters (note~ FB stands for Facebook.com, IM stands for Instant Message):

DaisyAvenue @jeanettejoy Yerp- we met on Twitter, added each other on FB, courted on IM first, then phone. Love at first sight when we met finally. 🙂

DaisyAvenue EMAIL: Mark said on Facebook that you two are engaged. We need you to confirm that you are, in fact, engaged to Mark. To confirm…

DaisyAvenue @jfritsche Thanks so much! @markdavidson just changed his FB profile to say engaged and it is making me confirm LOL!!

DaisyAvenue Ques. just in: Celebrating your engagement. Wondering since you met him online and he proposed online does your ring come from online too?

DaisyAvenue Answer: @markdavidson says that the ring is on its way from Amazon. Zappos doesn’t sell rings. Yet.

Their friends react:

jpostman @QueenofSpain @markdavidson proposed to @daisyavenue and she accepted

GreenSmith @DaisyAvenue N E R D S! Sending tweetulations….

jpostman @DaisyAvenue @markdavidson love you guys, congratulations!

mousewords @DaisyAvenue I’m totally presuming there will be a designated Twitterer during the wedding ceremony. 😉

jpostman @mousewords Will you be seated on the following or followers side of the aisle?

Some were not so kind:

monnie @marvlove PROPOSED ON TWITTER? WHAT A BLOODY PUBLICITY STUNT! OMGOSH ILL GET MORE FRIENDS IF I PROPSE!

But me? I believe in love, I believe in romance. And the happy couple?

DaisyAvenue @GreenSmith TY!! We are so nerdy that not only was the proposal & answer here but we both bet on Twitter not getting our tweets out right!

DaisyAvenue What does a newly engaged couple do? Come home, go thru Summize, fav the reactions and beam at each other. 🙂 And what a reaction!

DaisyAvenue BTW- Love does drive traffic. 46 new followers just since @markdavidson proposed to me. Does that mean that you will all be at the wedding?

Love, love, love! It comes it all types, shapes and sizes, doesn’t it? Congratulations @DaisyAvenue and @markdavidson. I wish you both every happiness! From, @lauralovesart.

In a sidenote I received a message from @markdavidson about my blog:

markdavidson @lauralovesart Thank you very much and thank you for the blog post. We’re saving that one to a flash stick. 🙂